Jock Sutherland

Hawaiian surfer and pioneering tube rider who dominated the Banzai Pipeline in the late 1960s, winning the 1967 Duke Kahanamoku Invitational and Surfer magazine's Surfer of the Year award in 1969.

Born John 'Jock' Sutherland in Long Beach, California, in 1948, he moved with his family to Hawaii's North Shore in 1954. His mother was a noted sea kayaker who swam the length of Molokai's north coast, and his father a World War II navy officer; Sutherland grew up surrounded by watermen and began riding waves on one of his father's old boards. Sutherland rode for Greg Noll as a teenager and finished runner-up at both the 1965 Makaha International Junior Championships and the 1966 World Contest in San Diego, appearing alongside eventual champion Nat Young and Corky Carroll. He became the undisputed king of the Banzai Pipeline between the eras of Butch Van Artsdalen and Gerry Lopez, pioneering new manoeuvres like the sideslip and switching stance mid-wave with remarkable ease. He won the 1967 Duke Kahanamoku Invitational and was named Surfer magazine's Surfer of the Year in 1969, a year regarded as one of the greatest North Shore winters on record. At the height of his fame, Sutherland enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1970 during the Vietnam War, a decision that interrupted his competitive career; he never fully regained his earlier form after returning to the North Shore in 1971. Sutherland worked for decades as a roofer while remaining a fixture at Pipeline, with a nearby surf break, Jocko's, named in his honour. Well into his seventies, he continued surfing and remains one of the most respected figures from the shortboard revolution's founding generation.

Innovative switchfoot tube-riding with the sideslip manoeuvre

One of the founding figures of the shortboard revolution and Pipeline's early competitive era